A good article on the basics of file and folder organization, critical to personal productivity. By Aaron Lynn at AsianEfficiency.com.

One of the simplest and most overlooked aspects of being organized is getting your computer files organized. It’s something that’s easy to take for granted, especially when you forget that most people don’t use their computers like us crazy systems-people do. Let’s look at some good practices for keeping your files and documents neat, in folders and easy searchable and accessible.

We’ve all been there, some more than others, but at one point or another we’ve all had to convert a file. But whether we knew how to or not, was the question. Sometimes with this sort of thing it’s simply the lack of knowledge of what to use. The other common issue is how to use it. Well now that you’re reading this article, those should no longer be problems that you’re familiar with.

Over the past several months, since notable security professional Dave Aitel proclaimed that security awareness was a complete waste of time, much has been written both for and against his arguments. I am not going to bother to add to the litany of articles. Regardless of your opinion about security awareness as a risk mitigating control, all information security professionals should be capable of at least describing, at a high-level, the concept of security awareness. Picture this scenario: you are tasked with talking about security awareness with your business colleagues. One stipulation – you have only five minutes to deliver your message. So other than constructing a machine to slow down time, how would you attempt to effectively describe security awareness in 300 seconds? My approach: take out all the techno-babble and appeal to people’s common sense.

Technology never stops moving foward. Hardware gets faster, and operating systems gain new features and (we hope) finesse. This is natural computing law.

But just because computers are one big exercise in evolutionary progress, that doesn’t mean certain computing maxims ever go out of style. Take, for example, the nuggets of wisdom in the following list. All of these things are as true today as they were 2, 5, and in some cases even 10 or 20 years ago.